Couple travel nation for special shots

By Shelley Shan / Staff reporter

Wed, Oct 24, 2012 - Page 4

Yang Ya-fen (楊雅棻) and Pan Yi-hsuan (潘奕璿), who are both in the early 30s, are planning to get married next month. Unlike other couples, who simply have their wedding photos taken by a professional photographer, they traveled around the nation using public transport and took their wedding pictures at different scenic spots.

Yang and Pan participated in a campaign by the Directorate General of Highways, which encouraged people to use the public transport to travel the nation.

Their plan won the top prize in the general public category.

The couple said it took four weekends to complete their DIY wedding photo project, taking 1,200 wedding photos in the process.

“I had to do everything by myself, which is very different from having photos taken by a professional photographer,” Yang said. “But the photos seem more natural.”

Yang said their trip took them to scenic spots in the north, center and south of the country, as well as the east coast, including Jiufen (九份), Lugang (鹿港), Sitzihwan (西子灣) and Cisingtan (七星潭).

Yang said that they wished they had known about the campaign earlier, as they had already booked a photographer to take wedding pictures for them. The entire package cost them NT$50,000, and the couple could only select 30 photos to keep.

Their DIY wedding photo project, on the other hand, cost them NT$18,000 and, of course, they can keep all their photos.

The campaign drew other creative proposals.

Wu Chia-ying (吳佳穎) and Ku Ming-han (顧明翰), students from National Taiwan Sports University, helped Chuang Fu-hua (莊馥華), a young blind woman with multiple physical disabilities, to fulfill her dream to travel around the nation.

Chuang, who is only able to communicate in Morse Code by turning her head and blinking her eyes, tried surfing for the first time in Yilan during the trip.

Ku said that the trip with Chuang had motivated them to help a limbless person climb Hsuehshan (雪山) in Yilan.